Administrators at Grand View College expected its enrollment to increase due to intensified marketing, new facilities and additional athletics, but even they were caught by surprise when the student body grew 43 percent in just five years.

When Kent Henning became the president of Grand View in 2000, there were about 900 full-time students enrolled. Now, for fall 2005, enrollment has shot past 1,300.

“We have grown over the last few years, and perhaps, faster than we had originally projected,” said Grand View College President Kent Henning. “In some strategic planning that we had done about three years ago, we had predicted that it would take another year or two to hit the 1,300 mark.”

Henning said the groundwork for growth had already begun when he came aboard. A year earlier, the board of trustees had approved the construction of a new wellness center, as well as the renovation of existing athletic facilities. The wellness center was the first of many projects the college has undertaken recently, the latest being this summer’s acquisition of a nursing home, which ha been converted into a residence hall to accommodate more students living on campus.

Debbie Barger, the college’s vice president for enrollment and management, said it is difficult to pinpoint what has attracted so many more students to Grand View, but that the construction of the Charles S. Johnson Wellness Center, which also houses the college’s nursing program, is a logical place to start.

“We were intentionally trying to increase enrollment, and a couple of things helped that to happen quicker than had planned,” Barger said. “We added the wellness center a few years ago, and part of the center is devoted to the nursing program. Our nursing numbers started to increase right away with the new facility. Right now, we have about 450 students enrolled in the nursing program alone.”

To complement the investment in the wellness center, the Grand View brain trust decided that the time was right to add more athletic programs. Junior varsity programs were begun in the sports the college already offered – baseball, basketball, softball, soccer and volleyball – followed by the addition of a competitive dance program two years ago, men’s and women’s cross county last fall and men’s and women’s golf this fall. Still to come are men’s and women’s track, which will launch in the spring of 2006.

“We added the junior varsity programs and new sports as a way to give students more opportunities to participate,” Barger said. “Our number of student athletes has actually doubled as a result.”

Henning said the larger number of student athletes helps “add some vibrancy to campus life,” especially for the students living on campus, whose numbers have also increased significantly. This year, about 410 students are living on campus, an increase of 20 percent from this time last year. Henning said Grand View is well on its way to reaching 500 residential students, a number which he sees as a “critical mass.”

“We would like to have 500 or more on campus,” Henning said. “I think it takes that number to make the school feel more like a residential campus and make for a richer residential experience.”

The issue now is where to put all the students when they arrive. Last fall, Grand View opened a new apartment-style residence for upperclassmen. Barger said this building, which has space for 111 students, filled up in the first year. Just in time for classes this fall, Grand View completed the renovations of the former Valborg Care Facility, a nursing home that was built by the same group of Danish immigrants who started the college. This added living space for 39 students, all of which are also full. The college’s two traditional residence halls and several college-owned houses are also full.

“We have been able to accommodate all students, but not with very many beds to spare,” Henning said. “If enrollment continues to grow the way it has for the last few years, it would be nearly impossible to accommodate the demand next year without turning students away. We don’t want to do that, and we won’t do that.”

Along with the concern of where students will live, another important consideration is what needs to be done to continue offering the high-caliber education Grand View students and their families expect.

“We’ve hired some new teachers, and we are just beginning the process of designing a new academic building,” Henning said. “We are conducting the study to see if we can raise the money for it. We hope to have the conceptual design for a new building and a cost estimate this month so that we can make a recommendation to the board of trustees.”

To plan for Grand View’s physical plant needs, Henning said the college is undertaking a master planning process, which will help determine what buildings are needed, when they would need to be built and where they would be located. Barger said Grand View’s 25-acre campus is somewhat boxed in by its surroundings, and that the master plan will help identify nearby properties that should be purchased as they become available.

What is impressive is that Grand View has attracted so many more students, and its biggest growth spurt may be yet to come, says Carol Bamford, the college’s new vice president for marketing and communications.

“We have been working on a very comprehensive strategic marketing plan, and so far, we have implemented only a portion of it,” Bamford said. “A lot of the tactics coming out of that plan, most of them have not been implemented long enough – or at all – to have their return recognized. We expect that once everything is in place, we will have an even bigger surge in enrollment.”

Bamford said the current enrollment surge is largely the result of the recruiting efforts put in place by Barger’s staff, which has focused on Grand View’s metropolitan location, the ease of transferring to Grand View from another school, the college’s 100 percent placement rate for graduates and its smaller tuition increases compared with other Iowa private colleges.

Grand View administrators have a lot of work ahead of them to prepare for the years to come, but Henning said one benefit with higher enrollment is that it relieves some of the uncertainty involved in building on to the college and enhancing programs.

“The enrollment growth and success that we’ve had over the last few years allows us to plan for the future with confidence and boldness as we look to add new buildings, invest in technology and introduce new programs,” Henning said. “It’s certainly easier to make those investments with a growing student enrollment as opposed to a declining one. Our growth has contributed to the quality of the campus and the academic programs, and everything that we do.”